If you ever watch a youth soccer\u00a0or basketball game, it is interesting to observe how the coaches choose to motivate\u00a0the kids. Some coaches seem to focus on the positive, motivating them by\u00a0pointing out what they have done right and cheering when they do something well.\u00a0Other coaches seem to focus on the negative, yelling at kids when they do\u00a0something wrong, berating their playing ability.<\/p>\n
Both of these coaches are hoping\u00a0for the same outcome: they want the kids to win the game.\u00a0 They are also likely hoping that the kids\u00a0will learn skills like perseverance, dedication, sportsmanship, and leadership\u00a0along the way. What some coaches do not always seem to realize is that the kids\u00a0are not just learning from their teammates and the actual playing of the game,\u00a0but they are very in tune to what the coach is doing and how the coach leads and\u00a0motivates the team.<\/p>\n
In reading an interview with\u00a0Mike Rice Jr., who was fired as Rutgers\u2019 men\u2019s basketball coach after a video\u00a0surfaced of him verbally and physically abusing his players during practice, I\u00a0noticed that Rice referred to the fact that his style of coaching was the only\u00a0style that he knew, that it was what had been modeled for him. While Rice had a\u00a0fairly good record as a coach, it came at the tremendous cost of the collateral\u00a0damage on the players themselves.<\/p>\n
This is also something that happens\u00a0inside business. There are thousands of managers who have somehow come to the\u00a0conclusion that negative reinforcement works, perhaps based on experiencing\u00a0their parents, coaches, and previous managers behaving in the same way. But time\u00a0and time again, negative reinforcement is shown to not be the most effective way\u00a0to motivate people.<\/p>\n
There is a fascinating story at\u00a0the beginning of Liz Wiseman\u2019s book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter about a military instructor who took an extremely high\u00a0performing military tank operational team and demoralized them so much through\u00a0negative feedback that they went from being one of the best teams to being one\u00a0of the worst. They lost any belief in their ability thanks to someone who only\u00a0focused on the negative and ripped them apart for any little mistake.<\/p>\n
Making people feel like they are\u00a0incapable can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If what you are really after\u00a0as a manager or a coach is a team that wins, learns, and achieves success, then\u00a0they cannot be made to feel like losers all of the time.<\/p>\n
This is not to say that mistakes\u00a0do not need to be corrected or that employees do not have areas of improvement,\u00a0but many times employees are able to identify those areas themselves. They know\u00a0if they were a bit short when they talked to a customer or if they rushed to\u00a0finish a project and made a few mistakes. You can ask them what they would like\u00a0to do better next time or what they would like to work on improving over the\u00a0next year, and they will most likely have already thought about it.<\/p>\n
If, as a manager, you do have to\u00a0point out a mistake, it does not have to come out in a berating way \u2013 it can\u00a0come from a place in which the employee clearly feels that you are on their\u00a0team and that you are interested in helping them get better.<\/p>\n
Even though the negative\u00a0approach to motivation does not work, it does not mean that you will never see\u00a0a successful business that has a horrible leader. Often that business is\u00a0successful not because of the leader\u2019s leadership style, but in spite of it. It\u00a0is strong enough to not crumble under poor leadership, but under great\u00a0leadership it \u2013 and its employees – could actually thrive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you ever watch a youth soccer\u00a0or basketball game, it is interesting to observe how the coaches choose to motivate\u00a0the kids. Some coaches seem to focus on the positive, motivating them by\u00a0pointing out what they have done right and cheering when they do something well.\u00a0Other coaches seem to focus on the negative, yelling at kids […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1300,"featured_media":9355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n